South Korea’s military has concluded that plastic, North Korean anti-personnel mines “deliberately buried” south of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) caused the Sept. 21 blasts that injured three ROK troops, announcing the final results of a joint investigation with the U.N. Command (UNC).

At a briefing on Monday, the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said investigators confirmed a match between mine fragments recovered from the wounded troops and a previously recovered North Korean mine of the same design.

The military also revealed that it launched an operation Monday to clear the DPRK minefield south of the MDL that the